Sunday, November 28, 2010

I'm a huge Less Than Jake fan. They are my favourite band. I love 'em to death and everything they've done. And yes, when I say "everything" that does include "In With The Out Crowd". It's not THAT bad. I mean how can you hate an album with songs as catchy as this:

I think that Lagwagon that just gets written off as "one of those 90's skatepunk bands" too often. I mean they were a skatepunk band. They had the "megabeat" or "forbidden beat" drums, the fast palm-muting, the wah-peddle solos. But I really think they are up there as the best pop-punk band from the 90's. They are poppier than most of their peers and Joey Cape is just heads and shoulders above all of them as a song-writer. Seriously one of my favourite lyricists ever. I think it's pretty dumb that bands like this can only tour big festivals or random short club tours because they don't have the draw used to, but these bands can go on giant package tours. Like really dumb. Just listen to this and try not to smile and belt out the words (once you know them at least, haha):

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Well, I guess it's time for my biannual get nostalgic about Scarborough post (and I even know what nostalgia really means now because of one of my classes! So I guess I should have said "reflective nostalgic post". Oh well, shoot me.). But this one is unlike my other ones.

Often times I get extremely fed-up with school and sick of my environment and just really need a change of scenery. Final assignments are often all due at the same time, I get sort of bummed out and run out of money and just think "Fuck this. I'm out. I'm done. Get me home so that I can retain that last shred of sanity that is dangling from the front of my brain." But I have to say that this isn't the case this time.

I mean I've still got a ton of work to do. I'm not looking forward to having to make that last push to finish all this shit, but you know what? Things could be way worse than having to write three essays. A hell of a lot worse. So my complaining really just isn't warranted at all.

But I am still very stoked to get back home. Christmas break absolutely rules. All my friends are home at the same time and it's only half-way through the year so we still have some money left to have fun. I like hanging with those dudes a lot and miss it tons when I'm away at school. Obviously everyone can relate to this. I mean, you're away from people you care about, missing them seems to be the gut reaction.

I have a few plans set in stone for the break (just wait until you hear SHARK ATTACK!, my oh my) but other than that I just plan to relax, see my friends, destroy a few cases of beer and have some fun.

Life is pretty simple if you want it to be. The more complicated you make it, the more it sucks.

PMA.

I kind of think that's perfect "emo" (yea, I know original emo was around before The Get-Up Kids and sounded different. Whatever.). Five normal dudes who are starting to pack on the pounds because they're getting up there in age playing poppy-punk rock music with honest music about their emotions. Not some fucker in Nike dunks with hair that looks a badger pelt on his head. Look for honesty in music, above everything else.

When I put the link to my movember page up somewhere online, a ton of random donations come in. This is really, really awesome. I assume it's because they want to donate and just do a google search for a page or something and mine pops up. So I'm going to post the link again here for that reason:

Sunday, November 21, 2010

It's the first all-nighter of the year. I hate them, but have already detailed why I hate them, so I'll lay off. I promised myself, after a particularly bad experience of pulling one last year, that I would never ever pull one again, no matter what, but since then I've pulled a few. Definitely nowhere near the amount that were happening before, but but still have done a few.

It really comes down to me being an extremely unmotivated individual. I always think "Okay, start ___ on ___" then I go to the library and generally don't do anything. Eventually I compromise in my head that if I do ___ on ___ then I should still be fine. I keep compromising until it's the night before I have essentially nothing to show for it. This is all fine and dandy for essays, I mean I can hand them in late. I lose marks and it sucks, but I can hand them in late. This was part of my promise of stopping the all-nighters.

But tomorrow I have my term presentation in my fourth year seminar class. This I cannot do late. I need to have this ready to go by 7pm tomorrow. It's doable. But goddamn is it ever going to suck. Every year I promise myself that I will try harder in school and not sell myself short in my subjects. Every year, I do not do this. I like to think I am not dumb. Not necessarily an extremely intelligent person, but least slightly above average in intelligence. Does this not giving a fuck in school make me dumb though? Is that fundamental action of actually doing everything required in every class an important part in determining how smart you are.

I mean obviously some people are actually geniuses. They can pick up on concepts quickly, have an incredible memory and don't need to do all the work that others do because they actually just don't have to. Most people really need to grind knowledge into their brains, the work (readings if you are a BA, practice problems if you're a Math major, etc.), is given so that you can pick up what's going on in class more easily. So even though there are people who might score lower on a completely out of the blue, cold standardized test than I would, they are probably smarter than me for having the presence of mind to actually do what they are supposed to.

I guess part of it is that I just sort of don't give a shit right now. Well, I give enough of a shit to not fail and want to complete my degree. But not enough of one to complete it with any fanfare. But, I'm sure I will give a shit in about 5 years. Hell, probably less than that. These people clearly recognize that giving a shit is important at this stage and do so.

A lot of people (me included in the past, I try not to do this anymore because I recognize the error in the statement) say things like "Oh, well I'm just as smart as him. He just works harder. Goes home and does like 3 hours of problems." Does that not make that person smarter then? To recognize what will give them the best possible chance of getting a good mark and understanding material and then (I guess logically) give a better chance at an easier life later on? I'm starting to lean towards yes more and more all the time.

I dunno, I swear that band that I'm not in is going to take off any day now...

I hope this doesn't sound too much like an apathetic whiney rant about school, because that's really not what I'm going for.

So, uh, I guess I was talking about this 4th year class at some point?

It's fucking hard. And I mean, classes have been progressively harder since kindergarden. But fuck this class is the biggest jump yet. I usually find myself sitting in the classroom listening to the prof lecturing and have really no idea about half the time. I used to pick up on things pretty quickly and could really get by, but fuck (hahaha, buttfuck) this does not happen here. After the lecture he usually tries to initiate some sort of discussion, but this usually fails. It's always the same 2 or 3 kids that speak, mainly because I think everyone else is as confused as I am? Is it just the prof? In my case, at least, I really don't think so.

This is also why I am worried about this presentation. I do not want to come off as a total moron in front of the class. People got up and gave presentations on postmodern theory-this and dreamstate-that. The only thing running through my head is "Fuck man!"

I'm banking on people not having heard of what I'm talking about, my habit of over-simplifying things to the point where it sounds like I'm talking to Damien in presentations and the hope that the audience has seen Billy Madison to pull this one through for me.

Because if these guys don't have a sense of humour, then this 21 year-old in a Hawaiian shirt explaining how Marcel Duchamp's most famous art piece is like Adam Sandler lighting a bag of dog poo on fire is up shitcreek.

And to think all that time could have been devoted to my presentation. The fuckin' way she goes.

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Thursday, November 18, 2010

I have not been updating this thing very often lately. This is because I have a literal mound of work to do. By a week Monday I need to write somewhere in the vicinity of 50 pages worth of essays and do a presentation. This is fucking hard. As much I was would like to write about things I actually care and think about, there's no time for that. So no more joints and only library.

But I guess I can squeeze out a post without much substance. This is sort of relevant. I'm laying off the recreational narcotics because whatever it is that let's your brain work properly and get things done, weed is filled with the opposite. It just makes me want to sit around and listen to music and watch stupid cartoons on TV (Squidbillies?). But anyways here are my favourite songs to listen to after a session of inhalation:

Speed Metal?

80's Post-Punk?

90's Indie?

Goth? Emo? Pop? I don't know how to label The Cure, but I love them.

...And just because putting this on when we do is a favourite past time of my house:

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Jawbreaker is a band that I really like, but skimp on listening to for some reason a lot. But in all my Jawbreaker/Blake loving, I've never checked out Jets To Brazil.

They're the band that Blake Shwarzenbach (the former singer and song-writer from Jawbreaker) formed after the demise of the latter's epic career. Their music style is sort of an extension of what Jawbreaker was going for on "Dear You". They are definitely in no way shape or form a punk band (I guess you could say the members are sort of punk. Though most would say they're not. Fuck them.), unlike Jawbreaker. Really just a pop band, but accompanied by Blake's always depressing/awesome lyrics. When you consider the amount of absolutely amazing/classic songs he's put out between these bands, it's really hard to ignore the fact that he's one of the best song writers of all time. I mean they guy is probably the most instrumental in making "emotional punk/rock" music in the 90's. And I guess 2000's because Jets To Brazil carried on for a little bit into that decade (feels really weird not referring to it as "this" decade).

But yea, I just got this album and it rules.

And if you're a girl, they got their name from a poster in Breakfast At Tiffany's. So I guess that's incentive to check this song. Because every girls seems to love that movie. Works if you're guy too. Movie is a "classic", though I've only seen it once.

I just went and read through a huge chunk of this thing. One thing I really noticed was that when I was feeling really down in the dumps, I obviously write about it in some way here. Then I would always follow it up with "I know it sounds like I'm bummed out, but I'm not. Don't worry about me!" I think this stems from the fact that I really don't like spreading my problems onto other people. People who act like some personal problem is making their world cave in around them and then pour their problems on everyone really get on my nerves.

I mean, I can understand if something huge happens. Someone close to you dies? Your significant other breaks up with you? Those are big things in your life. You need others to help you work through it. You fucked up on an exam? Watch out! Your life is over!

More or less, everyone has the same smaller problems in their life. Chances are, if you're aged 18-25 you are: trying to figure out your love life, trying to figure out how to stop being an alcoholic, trying to figure out what you are going to do for the rest of your life and trying to figure out why/why not you are in school, most people just only talk about it to their closest friends. So don't worry so much. Or worry I guess, but don't let it turn you into some emotional wreck.

But yea, I'm going to try to avoid saying "I'm not bummed out, don't worry!" when I actually am anymore.

Yo,

Crime In Stereo, I know your last shows were only just this weekend, but comeback please?

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Man, I hate how blogspot fucks up the font whenever you copy and paste from somewhere (this obviously happened in the last post). Sometimes I either write the posts in Microsoft word, or copy and paste into it for various reasons and the result is uneven font size and style. It's a little thing and it pisses me off. Get yer shit together blogspot.

Speaking of getting your shit together.

Dudes on the third floor of the library: Flush your shits.

I can understand if you leave a monstrous log, you leave it. You know other will appreciate it. But man, is that hard flush after you're done taking a regular one? Today every stall had a toilet full of piss and shit. S'gross dude.

Alright, so I sit down in a cubicle on the third floor of the library to do some work. As per usual there is "graffiti" adorning the sides and the desk surface in this cubicle (there is a specific word for when people write in public places like this, like in a washroom stall, but I can't remember it. Damn yo.). This usually makes me pretty stoked. Sometimes it's funny. Usually it's people showing how moronic they actually are. One time it was a chain of Star Wars references, and that made me smile because I'm a dork.

Anyways, this one started with one person writing "Speak now", obviously trying the put some vaguely motivation sentiment into this work station. It is followed in different coloured ink by "or forever hold your peace", obviously someone trying to continue the message? I dunno, they felt like writing it. Cool. Then after that there is "**piece", clearly somebody trying to correct an already grammatically correct sentence. After that it goes into people saying "I love Reece's Pieces!" and keeps going for a bit, but that's not relevant to this blog! So fuck it!

This made me think about how anal some people are about correcting other's grammar, even though they themselves often make mistakes. Now don't get me wrong, bad grammar does piss me off. Misuse of "you're" and "your" is irritating and people who say "I could care less" are another one. I guess it can make you seem as though you didn't pay attention in school and are a bit of a tool. I mean you got all the words there, step two is figuring out how to use them properly.

But I also don't want to come off as some all knowing, authoritative power on grammar. I mean look at this blog. There's probably tons of grammatical errors on this blog I haven't noticed. Actually, there is definitely some. So I guess this leads to the main thing.

Why the fuck is everyone so strung up on correcting everyone else all the time? Seriously? I can understand if it's a really important issue and it can create an interesting argument, but doesn't it piss you off when people stop others just to correct some minor detail? It sure as hell pisses me off.

There was one time I was having a conversation with someone and I said something along the lines of "... it would have been funner if more people came...", they laughed and said something like "Oh, Timmy. Funner isn't a word." In fact I said that because I think I said more right before that or something and thought that saying "more fun" would sound dumb. Then not five minutes later they said "addicting". I guess, if you are going to correct someone, make sure you are actually in the position to, y'know? What's that saying from the bible? Let he who is without drink grab the first slurpee?

Let's say the individual who wrote "peace" is El Duderino and the individual who wrote "piece" is His Dudeness.

Okay, His Dudeness. Odds are not only have you never met El Duderino, but you don't even know who he is. If El Duderino was in a lineup, you would most likely pick Jeffrey Lebowski, or even the Nihilists instead because you don't even fucking know who he is. Not only that, but you are so preoccupied with correcting the Duderino that you don't even notice that you're completely fucking wrong (unless you were trying to make a pun on the saying, trying to imply that one needs to hold their gun or their dong. In which case, I give you a standing ovation.). But man, relax.

I have a friend who says, for example, "I could care less about seeing this band...etc." do I stop him in the middle of this statement to correctly inform that he should in fact be saying "I could not care less about seeing this band"? No, I do not. Because I still completely, 100% understand what he is saying and me correcting him would only make me seem like a giant douche and it would throw a stick in the bike wheels of him finishing what he trying to say.